every moment that passes has a message but we tend to distort the guide of the moment to the tune of our thinking that it becomes irrelevant..we misinterpret individuality then but we seldom realize..but the message remains the same..we need to go beyond..alas! we seldom go..

The best way to know the self is feeling oneself at the moments of reckoning. The feeling of being alone, just with your senses, may lead you to think more consciously. More and more of such moments may sensitize ‘you towards you’, towards others. We become regular with introspection and retrospection. We get ‘the’ gradual connect to the higher self we may name Spirituality or God or just a Humane Conscious. We tend to get a rhythm again in life. We need to learn the art of being lonely in crowd while being part of the crowd. A multitude of loneliness in mosaic of relations! One needs to feel it severally, with conscience, before making it a way of life. One needs to live several such lonely moments. One needs to live severallyalone.

Tuesday, 2 April 2013

UPA’S NEXT PRIME-MINISTERIAL FACE: RAHUL’S NO AND YES, PRIYANKA STEPS IN, MANMOHAN INDICATES YET ANOTHER RUN

What it all
foretells? Where is the confusion? It is either not needed or the issue is
already sorted out.

First
it was about Rahul Gandhi’s ‘I am not for prime minister’s chair’, then
it was for ‘Rahul Gandhi’s statement on becoming prime minister was
misinterpreted’, then it was about ‘Priyanka Gandhi might contest the
next Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli’, further more, it was about ‘Sonia-Manmohan
arrangement in UPA to continue’.

Contradictory
and confusing at surface it looks but scratch a little and the developments
start telling for the clarity that is there, waiting to be seen.

Whatever
be the analyses, speculations and guessing games (including the wild ones), but
the above mentioned developments (reported) summarise how and why of the
politics of the Indian National Congress in the coming days.

Let’s
see what is being said (and has been said) about the Congress party politics,
its leadership and its next prime ministerial candidate in the recent past,
especially after the 2009 general elections when Rahul Gandhi was given the
major credit for the good show.

But
2009 to 2013 has been a rough patch and a shaky ride for the Congress party,
for Manmohan Singh and for Rahul Gandhi.

Corruption,
slowing economy, high prices, unpopular decisions and electoral debacles - the
continued run of negative developments has dented the gains of the first
government of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) giving rise to the body of
the speculative analysis over the Congress party leadership and its next
prime-ministerial candidate.

What do the developments say?

Dear
Manmohan is ruled out (is that really so?).It is said he is beginning
to prepare for a farewell for a retired life. There was a war cry in the Congress
party to declare the next face. Its echoes were very clear because there was no
one else in the race but Rahul Gandhiin democraticIndia’s most undemocratic party,
where the majority of the top leadership and almost all other party members
don’t see any hope beyond the Gandhi family to remain in the political
mainstream.

With
poor governance resulting from utter failures on policy issues and a widespread
corruption, everyone (many even in the Congress party) had started to write off
any chances for the Congress party in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. It had to be checked-in to keep the morale of
the party workers high. It is beyond doubt that what Manmohan Singh earned in
his first tenure as the prime minister is totally eroded now and the loss looks
well beyond redemption.

The
Congress party members had just only one hope left in this situation of gloom –
the charisma associated with the Gandhi family. After Sonia Gandhi was
effectively out of race due to her health concerns, they had their hopes pinned
on Priyanka and Rahul.

The
efforts culminated in coronation of Rahul Gandhi as the vice president of the
Indian National Congress in January 2013 taking effective control of the grand
old party ofIndia.

After
Rahul Gandhi took over, he spoke of revamping the party among other things.
During the course of one such conversation he said he didn’t want to be the
prime minister. He said, “Asking me whether you want to be Prime Minister is
a wrong question.” He also said, “The Prime Minister's post is not my
priority. I believe in long-term politics.”

It
opened a line a line of discussion on, if not Rahul, who could be the next
prime-ministerial candidate from the Congress party then. And it naturally
followed the corollary – who’ll be Rahul Gandhi’s Manmohan Singh? Even
if Rahul doesn’t take the prime-ministerial chair, like Sonia Gandhi, he would
be the real power centre of the government. Yes, he needs someone like Manmohan
Singh (or Manmohan Singh himself, in case the UPA rides back to the power).

Though,
there might be Rahul’s reasons behind his reluctance in taking the front space
of the political developments, his silence or delayed response on vital issues
has always given wings to the debates that who could be the next prime
ministerial candidate from the Congress party if Rahul decides to keep away
from it.

As we
saw, Manmohan could be an option due to his loyalty to the Gandhi family but before
looking further into this, we need to delve into the possible outcomes of the
next Lok Sabha elections in the mindset of the Congress party members and the
Congress party managers.

Even if
the UPA manages to collect the numbers to form the government in spite of poor
electoral show of the Congress party, Rahul Gandhi would not like to take the
troubled throne giving Manmohan yet another chance.

If both
think that the UPA is going to score a good victory in the next general
elections, Manmohan Singh is effectively ruled out. But hailing the Sonia-Manmohan
leadership and the legacy tells otherwise.

If the
Congress party managers think that it is not possible to come back to the
office in the next general elections, they would prefer to continue projecting
the Sonia-Manmohan arrangement as Janardan Dwivedi said (“The relationship
between the prime minister and Sonia Gandhi is unique and their camaraderie
cannot be replaced easily. We have not seen this sort of duality in any other
time and in all probability it is the ideal model for future also.” – April
2, 2013).

It is
logical. Rahul has already had his share of big electoral setbacks in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh where he campaigned intensively
but the Congress party was routed. Party managers have been trying to shield
Rahul’s name away from these defeats but a defeat in the upcoming Lok Sabha
elections would water down everything effectively pushing Rahul’s political
career back by many years. That might well be detrimental to the Congress party
and the Nehru-Gandhi family in an era of coalition politics and emergence of
many other regional political dynasties.

So, if
a certain defeat is clear in the mindset of the Congress party strategists, it
is better to leave it to Manmohan Singh to bear the brunt of anti-incumbency
against his governance, giving Rahul Gandhi opportunity to play safe for the
long-term political future.

Let’s
come to the other possible names.

Pranab
Mukherjee, being the President, is now ruled out. Other names of concern in
such debates are P Chidambaram and A K Antony.

But,
BUT, they are not as safe an option as Manmohan Singh was. Manmohan Singh was a
political nonentity and after completing 9 years as the prime minister remains
a political nonentity. That tells us how safe it was for the Gandhi family to
go with him. More or less, Manmohan has remained loyal to the family.

In
other words, he was never going to be a threat to the political dominance of
the Gandhi family in the Congress party.

On the
other hand, Pranab was never a safe bet given his grudge on making Manmohan
prime minister and his political ambition of getting the prime-ministerial
chair. After all he was a career politician with an impressive track record and
had all the valid reasons to aspire so. He could have never been the harmless
‘yes man’ the family was looking for. Pranab’s response on Narendra Modi’s
observation that Pranab would have been a better prime minister than Manmohan
Singh tells this. His “you can have your own assessment” tells all.

And so
are P Chidambaram and A K Antony. Given the way they have built their political
careers over the years, they cannot be expected to remain the ‘yes men’ once
given the taste of power of the country most powerful political position. After
all, the Sitaram Kesari experience is just over a decade old.

In
short, P Chidambaram or A K Antony can never be Rahul Gandhi’s Manmohan Singh. Also,
Manmohan Singh is not going to there in the long run, not beyond the next term,
if at all UPA comes in. And there is no one else in the Congress party (a safe
option like Manmohan Singh) who can be given the prime-ministerial chair in
case the party comes in a position to form the government in future.

And
this gives the possibility to think that the thinking thus would be to keep it
within the family (the Gandhi family).

And
here comes Priyanka Gandhi in the picture.

Even if
Rahul Gandhi feels reluctant to take the prime-ministerial responsibility, he
will have a family member to lead the political pack at the union government
level.

Alternatively,
if Rahul opts to become the prime minister, and if he feels he cannot don the
twin responsibilities of leading the party and government, he will be able to
take a free decision with Priyanka there to take over the responsibility of the
Congress party.

And so,
it all remains in the family.

This
might be the thinking and these could be the possibilities based on the ongoing
political developments.

Much of
what actually precipitates depends on the real outcome of the next Lok Sabha
elections but the Rahul-Priyanka political duo is going to take the centrestage
in the politics of the Indian National Congress.

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About Me

thinking, reading, n writing to fill my spaces-all this with visiting unseen places-a lot of doing n just my soul to company me-isn't it life at its best, if i can be at it-realizing every moment of life, i just need to have this in my life..

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